Love Me: The Manoir

Crying in School Bathrooms

At thirteen, it's quite hard to distinguish your own feelings. The world seems to be changing around you, the dynamics with people ever-shifting, and I found myself slowly reverting into myself. On the outside I was still the carefree and positive clown as usual, but for the first time I was beginning to feel the strain of putting on this act.

I wasn't being myself, but then again, I had no idea who I actually was. Everything in my life so far had been put on for other people, and so to lose that part of me would be like losing my feet. The world would so destabilised that I wouldn't be able to walk without feeling the earth beneath me shudder.

I began having odd thoughts. Things like walking alongside the road and wondering what would happen if I stepped out in front of the oncoming bus. I knew I would never do it, but there was part of myself that I couldn't quite trust. A part of me which seemed to treat life with a reckless attitude of saying 'fuck it'. It was at this age that I developed a trait which will most likely stay with me for life; every time a car would past I would clench and unclench my fists until it was gone. Digging my nails into my palms, I reminded myself of what it felt like to be living. That if I listened to that stupid devilish imp on my shoulder, I would no longer feel those sensations anymore.

But these thoughts of death and injury began to fill my head a lot. I had always had a dark imagination, but these ideas were different. Sometimes I would imagine what would happen if the bus crashed and I died. What if the bus was hijacked and I was kidnapped. I imagined my own death hundreds of times, sadistically revelling in the idea of people missing me when I was gone. I would play Adele and create long and elaborate eulogies that people would say and write about me.

These thoughts would scare me, and yet I continued to indulge in them. I knew there was something wrong with me, that these thoughts of death seemed to be the only thing that would ever evoke any emotion inside me. That I never really seemed to feel happy anymore. I found myself one day breaking down in the bathroom - probably after another session of 'banter' which was about me being awkward or ugly or both - and two friends finding me. I told them about these thoughts, they didn't know what to say.

No one did. Because we were thirteen, and no matter how old we felt sipping on vodka and talking to boys, we were still so incredibly young. I would go on to lock these feelings away, these feelings of utter isolation, and hope that I could bury it enough that one day it didn't affect me.

This is where I cite the start of my mental health problems. It is also the start of me hiding them so effectively that no one noticed how much I was hurting for four years.

The biggest concerns in my life in 2015:

I drank vodka and coke, not a lot but I drank.

I don't like my friends, they get on my nerves

I watch porn on Instagram

I think I am bisexual, I don't know how I just have a feeling

I want to experience an orgasm

I want to squeeze Emma's boobs

I want to be at sport really bad, more than anything

I really want to go back to Matt

I keep having nightmares

I'm scared of being alone

I'm scared of death